Crazy, rich and amazin’ – director Jon’s Yellow fever
EVERY
now and then a film comes along that breaks the mould for a group of people.
I’m talking about movies such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding or Bend It Like Beckham.
It’s a story about an ethnic community – like Greek or Indian people – and it’s just brilliant. That’s what new hit romcom Crazy Rich Asians is in the USA right now.
It’s about the Asian community and is getting great reviews. Audiences are flocking to see it and I suspect it’s going to be massive in the UK as well.
Part of its success is down to an unlikely source – Chris Martin.
Crazy Rich Asians took £30million in its first weekend in US cinemas – which isn’t bad as the first mainstream Hollywood studio movie with an all-Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club in 1993.
The creators were so confident, they turned down an exclusivity deal with Netflix so they could get it into cinemas.
They’ll now be crazy rich themselves, thanks to that decision.
It’s based on a best-selling novel about a Chinese-American woman who finds out her boyfriend comes from a rich Singaporean family.
The director, Jon M. Chu, wrote to the lead singer of Coldplay to ask him if he could use their track Yellow in the movie.
The word “yellow” has a negative connotation for Asian people – but Jon was inspired by Chris’s track.
“I know it’s a bit strange, but my whole life I’ve had a complicated relationship with the colour yellow,” wrote Chu.
“From being called the word in a derogatory way throughout school, to watching movies where they called cowardly people yellow, it’s always had a negative connotation in my life.
“That is, until I heard your song. For the first time in my life, it described the colour in the most beautiful, magical ways I had ever heard – the colour of the stars, her skin, her love.
“It was an incredible image that made me rethink my own self image.”
Meanwhile I see Jennifer Lopez appeared at the Video Music Awards last week, delighting her fans – including me – with her performance.
She took to the stage to deliver a medley of hits. It’s the first time she’s performed at the show in 17 years, but she made it look effortless.
I’m meeting up with J-Lo later this month so I’ll be asking her the secret as like her I’m pushing 50 myself – although I’m not saying from which side…